I never played an instrument in my whole life. Nobody in my family ever played any instrument, and we never had an instrument at home when I was a kid. So it never occurred to me, that it would be something for me.
Now my youngest son has the chance to learn an instrument at school, and he chose the clarinet. Since we now had a clarinet at home, I thought 'Now, or never!', bought a second mouth piece three weeks ago and started to play myself.
And I have to say, I enjoy it immensely. Obviously, I'm still terrible, but this opened a while new word for me. I also have even more respect for people who play instruments, after realizing how difficult this really is.
Today, I found the score for one of my favorite classical pieces, the second movement of Dvoraks 9th symphony, and I managed to play the first few bars (before it gets to the higher register, which probablyI can't reach for a long time). It was probably still terrible for others, but it gave me goosebumps.
A positive side effect is, that I can't doom scroll while practicing, so it also helps to keep me sane during these times.
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The #AAS has announced that the summer meeting 2026 will be held at a central location and the summer meeting in 2027 will be fully online to reduce the carbon footprint of the meetings. This is a small step in the right direction, and I hope that other organizations follow this example.
If we replace every second meeting with an online meeting, we can still meet in person, but immediately reduce the footprint associated with meetings by 50%. It will be also much cheaper and more inclusive. A win-win-win.
https://aas.org/board-trustees-meeting-highlights#24dec
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I saw this fence at a construction site and wondered why they printed this cool logo of an open telescope dome on it.
It turned out to be just a chance alignment of a street lamp, a street sign, and an old gate from the old city wall.
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I'm deeply saddened to learn today that our Director and colleague Prof. Karl Menten has suddenly passed away on December 30st. It's a devastating loss for his family, our institute and the entire astronomical community. I will always be grateful for all his support and advice he had given me over the last 20 years.
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After some trouble, my solar panels are producing energy. The weather was pretty bad, and we have December, so it isn't much. But it's working now. Waiting for a sunny day now. 😃
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I'm making the next small step for my personal #decarbonisation. After drastically reducing flying, and switching to an electric car earlier this year (as well as trying to bike more), I'm upgrading the two solar panels I had on the roof for the last two years. I'll get 24 new modules with a total 10.92 kWp this week that will hopefully reduce my carbon footprint. It's some progress, but there is still a long path ahead.
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Test Post, Please Ignore!
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I finally saw the #comet #tsuchinshan_atlas today. Conditions were far from perfect, and this is only a handheld photo. But at least it's visible. I couldn't see it with my own eyes, but my youngest son had better eyes. Very nice in binoculars.
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Current point of view if I open my eyes. Could be worse.
[#]CloudsOfMastodon
[#]SilentSunday
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